Do you remember when you were in fifth grade? When the days just blurred together along with the nights? When in fifth grade, you still have a lot of growing up to do. Around that time your sophomoric ways are okay. That’s the difference between you and Ida Beatrice Fuller. Her fifth year of elementary school seemed like her last on account of the fact that Ida already knew everything she needed to know by then.

Although her studies were barely decent, Ida had a vague understanding of everything by her fifth grade year. She understood everything from why the birds sang their songs in the morning and not at night to why teachers acted so stiff when the principal walked in the class. She understood the sweet smooth flowers, the pale sky, and the dried grass.

Ida was never really social, but that was her choice. She could teach the other kids how to cartwheel up a mountain if she pleased, but she preferred to sit under her special tree and stay isolated from the world.

She wasn’t bullied either. Everyone just had a mutual understanding of her. They knew it was her choice to be alone and they respected her decision. Ida didn’t know that though. She felt alone every day. She figured being alone was better than any amount of fake friends, anyway. So for now, her only friend was her tree.

Well, one day little Ida woke up, got out of bed groggy-eyed as usual and started her day out like any other. If only she knew how much this ordinary, normal, boring day would affect her life.

The gray clouds in the sky created a fluffy masterpiece above. The school day passed like normal. No homework, which meant Ida would have more time at her tree. She decided to head there right after school. Her mom wouldn’t mind.

And so the last bell rang and Ida made her way to the forest nearby. She found the path hidden by shrubbery. Approaching her tree she spotted a young boy about her age, wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans, sitting upon her tree. There’s one distinctive feature that catches her eye; the boy is wearing a tribal necklace. A small turquoise beaded necklace centered by a large tooth; probably a shark’s.

“Hey!” she yells. No one is supposed to touch her tree. “Get out,”

He whispers something, “This isn’t your tree.” He jumps out of the tree and runs. Ida opens her mouth as she’s about to say something, but just kicks the dirt and crosses her arms in annoyance.

“Dumb kid,” she says under her breath.

The next day, when she arrived at school, her homeroom teacher stood at the front of the class, by the chalkboard. She said there was an announcement.

“Students, today we have a new student. Come out, son, don’t be afraid. We don’t bite.” She joked.

A small boy with pale sunken eyes and a tribal necklace stepped out from behind a door, obviously slightly annoyed.

“What is your name?” asks the teacher.

“My name? My name is Q, ma’am.” he says with a quiet voice.

“Your real name, son?” she asked

“Q is my real name, ma’am” he then took his seat.

Ida was still taking in the current situation. This boy… was he following her? Should she be worried? Who was he and what was he doing with her tree? The recess bell rang.

She decided to confront him where he sat alone eating his sandwich while children screamed and played behind him.

“Who are you, really?” she asked him from five feet away.

“My name is Q. Ten years, from Humboldt, California. And you are?” He was surprisingly very calm for someone his age at playtime, as they called it.

“This isn’t about me, Q. I want to know why you were up in my tree yesterday,” she said, as faint aggressive tones arose in her voice.

Q took another bite of his sandwich. He patted the empty space on the bench next to him. “Sit down, Ida.”
How did he know her name? Ida resisted for a moment but couldn’t resist his manners. She slowly walked towards him, smoothed her skirt beneath her, and sat.

“I just thought that tree was nice. It was comfy,” he said.

“But what about all the other trees in the forest?” asked Ida.

“Well I just thought that tree was special.” Then the bell rang.

Ida and Q didn’t talk after that day for the next three months or so. They’d see each other at school and while walking home but wouldn’t talk to each other. It went on like this for a while; them walking past each other in the halls like strangers… like they had never met or had that conversation at recess that one day.

But one fateful day Q rang Ida’s doorbell three times and waited outside for her to answer. She slowly opened the door and was surprised to see Q timidly awaiting her.
“Q!”

“Ida!” He was very happy to see her. He acted as if they were long-time friends reunited at last. He gave her a big warm hug.

“Not to be rude, but what are you doing here?”

He let her go and said, “Does there need to be a reason to see my favorite classmate?” He smiled warmly. Before Ida could protest, Q spoke up, “I need to show you something! Follow me quickly.”

“Q, this is no time for exploring. I have homework to do and so do you.” She said.

“I’ll do your homework, just follow me!”

She began to follow him before she thought about it too much and let her conscious change her mind. She knew her way back home from the forest anyways.

They walked and walked until they were beyond the forest, beyond Ida’s comfort zone. She was about to say something, but she saw the view and it took her breath away. They were at a huge grass plain with vibrant green grass reaching up to their knees. Nothing else was beyond the grass but the cloudy sky which was being broken up by rays of warm sunshine. The horizon was centered by the round orange sun and a bare tree far off. It appeared as if the sun was just above the grass. Ida was near tempted to try and pick up the ball of light, for in her small town in northern California, the sun was an oddity to most residents.

“Q?” she murmured

“Ida…?”

“Where are we?”

“In a place you’ll never forget.”

Ida had no idea what was going on, but she felt somewhat safe. She trusted him in a way that she couldn’t explain.

“What are we doing here? What did you want to show me?” she asked.

“You’ll see. Give me your hands,” he said.

She hesitated for a moment then placed her hands on his. He fiddled with his necklace, adjusting it, while holding one of Ida’s hands.

“Uh… Q?”

“Yes, Ida?” he was still fiddling with his necklace. She didn’t answer. “Do you trust me, Ida?”

“I guess,” she said quietly.

As soon as she said that something started to happen. The sky seemed to sink away. The ground disappeared. The tree and sun and grass twisted into unrecognizable mass of green, orange, and gray.

It then looked as if someone had poured a gallon of paint over the world as it dripped down around until everything was white. For a second Ida couldn’t find her voice. She realized she was still holding Q’s hand tightly. She let go abruptly.

She looked at Q for an explanation, but he seemed too intrigued with his new surroundings to notice her eyes on him. He was staring at a pink light far off in the vast white plain.

As Q began to walk towards the small light in the distance, Ida started to run towards him, but tripped on an invisible solid. She gathered herself and hovered her hands above the ground, searching for what had tripped her. What she found appeared to be an invisible tree stump.

“Q!” she exclaimed.

“Yes?”

“Where are we? What happened?” she was still on the ground observing the invisible tree stump as she spoke.

“You ask a lot of questions, Ida.” He continued to walk towards the light.

“But-“ she began to protest.

“Come here! Quick!” he called over to her.

He ran over to her when she didn’t follow him immediately and grabbed her arm. Suddenly they were running, sprinting towards the pink light. With each step it got bigger and bigger, the light growing brighter and more vibrant until it swallowed them both whole.

Their eyes took a minute to adjust. Again, Ida immediately looked for Q. He was there by her side. Soon he was wandering again, looking around curiously. The scene was completely different this time. It was literally upside down. The sky was on the floor, clouds and all. Trees hung down from above with grass and flowers in the sky. Vines came from every direction, surrounding them.

“Q, I don’t know where we are, but it’s beautiful.” she spoke softly, admiring the scene.

“Glad you think so, because you made it,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you realize? These dream scenarios are based off your thoughts,” he smiled. “Your mind is a beautiful place, and it should be treated as such.”

“I don’t even know if you’re telling me the truth, but if you are, you should know that this isn’t even the half of it,” she said.

“Then I guess we have a lot of exploring to do. Ida, our minds are beautiful. They’re like an entire world full of things we think, know, feel and understand. Our minds are a beautiful forest. And to know ourselves, first we must walk the trail of our thoughts. We must skip along the road of our memories and tiptoe on the paths that are our emotions. Do you understand?”

Ida stared at him for a moment with both wonder and disbelief in her eyes.

“Are you sure you’re only ten?”

She heard a chuckle.

Ida woke up in the morning in her bed.
“Just a dream,” she said to herself, relieved to know she wasn’t completely insane.

At school, she almost didn’t want to walk past Q for some peculiar reason she couldn’t explain. Just knowing she had a vivid and extremely odd vision of him, a near stranger, in her dreams was very weird.
But regardless, she had to walk past him in the hallways. He was walking her way. She hid her face.

“Ida! Come here for a second.”

Damnit. Why was he speaking to her? Did he know or something? She hesitated but slowly walked towards him.
“Q? What’s up?” she said.
“Uh… hey, yeah, just wanted to let you know… our little walk in the forest yesterday…? Yeah, let’s keep that between us, alright?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. Had she heard correctly? What was happening? “Ida?” He waved his hand in front of her face.
“Uh… yeah… okay.”
She walked away. Maybe she really was losing her mind.
Two weeks later on a Tuesday night, Q walked to her house at 6 o’clock p.m. when the sun began to set and rang the bell three times.
When Ida saw him waiting at the door from outside her window, she immediately knew what was about to happen. Quickly she pulled on a brown coat and some fuzzy boots over her fuzzy pink pajama pants. She yelled to her mom in the other room that she’d be going to the backyard for a while, and without any greetings or questioning, she opened the door, looked Q straight in the eyes, and walked past him out the driveway. She looked behind her at the somewhat shocked Q. He quickly caught on though, and led her to their destination.

“Hurry before the sun sets. The time must be precise.” he said.

She nodded and followed.

When they finally arrived at the quiet grass plain, Q stuck out his hands and Ida grabbed them without question.
“Do you trust me, Ida?’
“I trust you, Q”

Ida closed her eyes and when she opened them, Q’s hands were back at his sides and the scene was much less cheerful and vibrant.

Seven black vases sat on the ground in front of them, each holding a black rose. The walls of the large room seemed to be oozing black and gray paint. In the corners were torn pieces of paper and broken glass scattered round on the floor.

“Where are we?” Ida began to back away as if she expected something to pop out at her.

“I should ask you the same thing.”

Ida stopped backing up and looked at Q. She understood. Ida began to walk towards the vase in the very middle. Her hand softly came underneath the petals but as soon as it made contact, the rose completely disintegrated in her palm.

“How exactly do you take us out of here?” she asked while looking down at the black dust in her hand.

“Do you want to leave?” she nodded. “Very well, I just have to take off my necklace and we’ll be back in reality. One moment.” a moment of him playing with his necklace passed. “Oh no,” to his astonishment it seemed his method wasn’t working.

“What’s wrong? Is it working?” she began to worry.

“It’s not working. I must have done something wrong.”

“Q, look at me.” he looked at her.

Ida suddenly grabbed his arm and they walked together towards the black wall. Her hand went all over the wall searching for an exit of some sort.

“What are you doing?” Q asked.

“We need to find it” she said, still searching the walls.

“Find what?”

“I don’t know”

Q didn’t ask any more questions after that. He didn’t need to. He too, started searching the walls. And after a minute of searching he said, “Ida, close your eyes and picture a door on the wall.”

“Wha-“

“It’s your fantasy. If you can think up these places, then you can think up everything else too.”

Ida listened and closed her eyes. Suddenly a door appears on the wall behind them

“Ida! Look,”

They ran over to the door and twisted the knob. Immediately, thousands of spiders began to pour out of every crack in the door. The kids screamed and swatted and the tiny black creatures crawling on their skin. Ida then realized what to do. She closed her eyes and concentrated for a second before every single little bug disappeared simultaneously with a poof and a little black mushroom cloud above them.

“Good job,”

“Thanks.”

They went through the door.

This room was entirely different. It wasn’t gloomy or depressing, it was disturbingly scary.

There was no scenery or surroundings to make it any creepier. The thing that made it the scariest was the nothingness, the emptiness. They were in a black space. Ida couldn’t even tell if there were any walls to encase the “room”. She turned to back out but the door behind them was gone. The only thing they could see was each other. They didn’t know what to do, where to go.

“Ida, could you imagine some light?” he asked.

After a moment she said, “I can’t…”

“Why not?”

“There are just some things I can’t make up anymore. As hard as I try, I just can’t imagine any light.” she said, staring ahead into the blank darkness.

“After we get out of here, we need to have a talk.”

She said alright and took a step forward, but as soon as she did, something like a tile fell below. It wasn’t fear itself, it was fear of the unknown.

“Ida, behind you!” she turned around just in time for a gray shadow to zoom by above her.

“We need to get out of here!” Q yelled

“There’s nowhere to go. We’ll be stuck here forever, Q”

“Just imagine something happy! Please…”

Ida closed her eyes and clenched her fists. It front of them, a big brown crate appeared. They contemplated opening it at first, but realized it may be their only way out. Q slowly began to walk towards it. Ida jumped in front of him and placed her hand on top of the crate.

“Just do it,” said Q

She opened the box and jumped in


“Q! Q, where are you?”

Ida looked around blindly. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted yet.

“I’m right – “
As she looked his way she saw a large white mist pick him up off his feet and into the sky. She started to adjust to her surroundings. It was a very large detailed gray room filled with carvings on the walls of goddesses and kings and many decorations that were carved with what seemed like years of careful back-breaking work, seemingly very old. At the top and very center of the room was a blinding white light that surrounded a very large white spirit. From what Ida could see, the entity had ghostly long white arms dangling from everywhere in the room. One of these arms was holding Q high above her head. She seemed to be the only one there.

“Ida!” He struggled in the ghastly arm which constrained him.

The voice of the spirit spoke, “You have a choice. Choose to fulfill your goal and I’ll keep the boy. Choose to release the boy and I shall take half of your remaining life.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked

“Simply to keep the balance of life in order. No more questions. Make your choice.”

“Ida, don’t listen! Fulfill your goal!” Q yelled from above

Ida stared and thought hard for a minute. Finally she came to the conclusion.
“What if my goal is to stay with Q?”
“Ah, clever girl. Very well. Be on your way”
“Let him go now.”
A bright light blinded her.

The setting sun lit the two children’s faces. They lay on the grass. The entire world seemed so calm and quiet. Neither of them could find the words to describe what they felt.
“Are you okay?” Ida sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“I’m fine. How about you? Are you fine?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he paused. “Ida? Do you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“Feel the way I do.” He looked down at his hands.

“I do. Do you also feel like something is here that wasn’t here before?

Right then Q looked Ida in her eyes and told her yes. Ida looked back in his eyes and started to cry. Q didn’t need to ask her why she was crying because he understood. Its only normal for someone to better understand a person once they’ve been in their mind. Q had gone places in Ida’s imagination that even she hadn’t been. And now he understood. He had a knowledge of her now, A knowledge that wouldn’t ever be lost.

Ida said through her sobs, “We found it. We fulfilled our goal.”

Q hugged her, “We found you, Ida.”

And in a way, he was right. They had finally found Ida’s true self. He knew her better than anyone and that’s what mattered to him.

But Ida’s perspective was different. She felt she had found happiness, and what its really like to be a 10 year old girl, to have fun. But she had felt something else. She had a feeling deep down inside her heart that she had discovered something much more important, she had it all along but it took a near-death experience to realize that what she had been looking for was beside her all along.

She found Q. If she hadn’t went up to him on that day at school, he wouldn’t have saved her in every way possible as he had. Yes, he saved her from what seemed like many monsters and spirits and creatures, but in reality, he saved her from herself. He had saved her from her own mind and Ida would never forget that,

“Thank you so much, Q.”

“Thank you, Ida.”

Later that day Ida and Q walked to Ida’s tree. Q took off his necklace and buried it by the trunk. The only mind he ever wanted to explore was Ida’s and that task was done. And there was no more use for it. They were best friends.